William McRaven in 2013. He wanted more protection for the first special operator to go through a door during raids. Mark 2 All silver and the first suit to fly with much more advanced weaponary. When combined with a matrix of wafer-thin computer lines, the resulting system was Shellhead’s first cybernetic system. The suit also had limited underwater capability, complete with a system to flush water out of the armor if (when) it leaked in. Bordering on the impractical, this Iron Man suit received wholly justified criticism. It has been shown many times in the movies that Iron man after completing his flight, lands with a tarmac smashing, trademark thud. Iron Man has since gone on to dominate pop culture, thanks to his predominance within the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Coming straight out of the Amalgam Universe was this cross between Iron Man and DC’s own Green Lantern. But he needs better integration into the wider universe. That idea was scrapped about as fast as it was conceived, and the character was a lot better off for it. It created a suit of armor that nobody asked for, and even less thought was a good idea. With the help of Ho Yinsen, Tony instead builds the Mark I suit.

While most Iron Man fans simply can’t mistake the classic Mark I armor that Tony Stark built to escape a highly dangerous situation, many have forgotten what came next. The huge Mark XLIV suit is otherwise known as the Mighty Hulkbuster armor. There’s some backstory to this debacle that centers around Stan Lee making an offhand remark about the suit lacking a visible nose, which unfortunately spawned a rather silly decision. Besides the cybernetics and the nose, Tony Stark also experimented with the very underpinnings of this model near the end of its use-life. Multiple characters poked fun at the nose, putting Stark on the defense. After Onslaught laid waste to the entire Marvel universe, the decision was made to reboot many of the characters into what is now known as the infamous “Heroes Reborn” storyline. At the time, Disney’s Marvel unit was facing off in court against the estate of comic book legend Jack Kirby over whether his heirs could terminate a copyright grant and thus reclaim rights to characters including Spider-Man, the X-Men, the Incredible Hulk and the Mighty Thor. This regular human with an oversized intellect managed to concoct a series of nearly-invincible armors that turned him into one of the most recognizable superheroes in comic book history.

There was a time when Tony Stark believed it was necessary to construct a series of underwater Iron Man armors capable of withstanding deep-sea pressures, and the dangers that lie within. Though the sheer shock of such an event was designed to shake things up creatively, many characters, including Iron Man, were not terribly well-received. When a digital copy of Tony Stark confronted the real one, who had had his morality inverted with magic, it commanded an army of Iron Man armor, including the Model 1 in both its MK II and MK III versions. She’s remotely controlling the Stealth armor, which is unceremoniously blown to scrap by Titanium Man. The body of the suit was made using cardboard, whereas the ‘armour’ was constructed from scrap metal. An exoskeleton suit must provide comfortable environment for its bearer. At the Facility, Stark soon had a mental breakdown, in which he angrily removed the Arc Reactor that was used to spawn the suit from his chest, and passed it along to Steve Rogers, telling him to use it himself to take on Thanos. The Arc Reactor is also the power source of Stark Tower (later moved underground and the tower was renamed Avengers Tower) and a miniaturized arc reactor was created to power the Iron Man suit.

Iron Man was now able to mentally command his suit’s functions and weapons. Armaments: improved Repulsors (could now melt steel in a third of the time and easily blast through a two-foot-thick wall); Laser Blaster added to chest plate searchlight (but it drained so much energy per blast that it was only good for one blast per battle); foot blasters (in boots); Unstable-Freon Mini-Bomb. Now she had come to make it right. While improving the strength of the helmet, Stark also modified the mask’s “skin” to show a bit more of his actual facial expressions in an attempt to make himself more fearsome. Though it wasn’t an entirely new suit design, the added nose did make waves. He also added a nose. While improving the mask, he also added stronger plexiglass eye and mouth shields for sealing the suit. The suit was put out to pasture after just a single outing. To put it another way, keep watching the skies. This paint job might have earned him the nickname “The Golden Avenger,” but it was too hard on people’s corneas, and was put out to pasture in favor of the redesign.